Painting a jungle mural from a kit in the bedroom of her new twin grandchildren was giving the artist in Patricia Newton a pain in the neck.
Why was the lion frowning? What was with the toucan’s backward ankles? And, darn, that monkey was ugly! The former Walt Disney Imagineering designer couldn’t help but paint over the offending primate, put a smile on the lion and fix the bird legs.
Wowed, her son suggested she start a business of her own to design murals aimed at parents looking to create some low-cost magic in their kids’ rooms.
Four years later, Newton’s Elephants on the Wall business sells about $100,000 a year worth of paint-by-number kits. Her 96 designs include pirate ships, princess castles, mermaids and inquisitive mom-and-baby blue dinosaurs designed to look as if they are peeking out from behind a room’s door.
The designs, which cost $29.95 to $124.95, have been filmed for Home & Garden Television’s “I Want That!,” touted in Better Homes & Gardens and praised online for their cheerful, polished graphics.
Logo from Elephants on the Wall.